25 October 2017

Leading HIV and AIDS researchers, Professors Salim and Quarraisha Abdool Karim, have been named the recipients of the esteemed Institute for Human Virology (IHV) Lifetime Achievement Award for exceptional public service for their contributions to the global AIDS response. The prestigious award will be presented by Dr Robert Gallo, who discovered HIV as the cause of AIDS, at the 19th International meeting of the IHV on October 25 in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Professor Salim Abdool Karim is the Director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim is its Associate Scientific Director. They are both Professors in the field of Epidemiology at Columbia University, New York and are honorary academics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. They are renowned for their tireless and distinguished scientific contributions in HIV prevention and treatment research that span nearly three decades.

Gallo said to him of these renowned individuals have made some of the greatest contributions in the history of HIV/AIDS in public health and epidemiology relevant to prevention and care of infected people.

“I don’t know any person or persons who have done more to advance the proper care of people with HIV infection or the prevention of HIV infection among a population. Their scientific contributions have focused on trying to prevent HIV in women in Africa. They were the first to demonstrate that antiretrovirals can prevent sexual transmission of HIV in 2010, when shared the results of the CAPRISA 004 tenofovir gel trial,” he said. 

Read the full article online here.